Eh, that doesn't work anymore... Or does it? How many altars spawn if you unlock just one?

I'm not sure that you can do the Rogue challenge for the gloves with just TT, either. It used to be possible back when getindare gave dodge prediction, but the actual solution invovled... binlor and/or Drac overheal?

I think when I had just one altar unlocked, just one spawned, but not every time. But it worked that way before too if I recall. It's an extra money boost when it shows up, and when it doesn't, oh well.

I'm not sure if you can get Midas Gloves, but you _can_ get Bet on Boss while trophies are still near top price. Between that, TT, and having three really good classes unlocked (two of which are incredibly versatile and the other which is narrow but powerful) you can spend the early game having more money than you can use in actuality and carry that right through until trophies start going down and you've got most everything unlocked.

If we could replicate that as closely as is currently possible, it'd probably be worth of a sticky. Kind of an update to Sidestepper's thread; "Guide to Unlocking for Optimal Profit Early On" or something.

Well, the way it used to work before it blew up is that if you unlocked one altar you always get it. Since this was extremely exploity with TT for farming gold it got nerfed. You don't want to know what the original "optimal minimal unlocks" looked like, and I'm pretty sure stickying that isn't a good idea. There's a reason the thread was called "The only way to play this game" or something like that.

Well, that's blatant hyperbole in any case, but I do think it'd be a helpful guide. You can't really exploit it much anyhow; you'll eventually be capped by bank limits if nothing else, and you can't get the bank to the 10K limit without having a _lot_ of stuff unlocked. True, you could theoretically avoid unlocking any other deities, but you'd be crippling yourself in a lot of ways. There's a lot of situations TT simply isn't good for, like a SMM appearance.

Eh, that's not entirely true. What happens is that you figure out you can selectively unlock loads of stuff. Altar preps were introduced, among other things and AFAIK, to prevent people from doing stuff like that. The problem isn't exploitation per se as completely derailing the learning curve. If you only unlock goats, bandits and gorgons, the game is quite breezy.

It started as a way to speed through a playthrough to Gaan'Telet with as much money as possible so I can blow it all on Gaan'Telet runs with a limited shop pool so I don't have to scum for stuff. I made the "mistake" of unlocking GG and having him guaranteed on every run along with TT. Let's just say it got ugly and did nothing for my development as a player for a good while.

Hrm. Maybe I'm misremembering or it's changed, but I don't think you could currently unlock GT without unlocking at least most of the classes, and thus monsters. Depends which quests unlock other quests. I mean I could see where if it's possible it could stunt your growth as a player and really be playing the game outside its intended boundaries. Maybe compromise a bit? Guide them in the direction of making money, but don't actually offer explicit details on how to break the game? Like encourage at some point that they unlock all the classes even if that's not the 100% technically ideal decision to make for purposes of breaking the game in half?

Eh, noone has control over what gets stickied, so as far as I know you're free to try. I'm just giving an educated guess. The devs did go out of their way to stop the nonsense and give incentives to unlock stuff, that's true. I don't have a crstal ball to be able to tell you the offical stance on it, but based on the reactions towards tinker/transmuter scumming as a concept I'd guess they wouldn't be too thrilled.

Also, getting better and taking less preps into runs, doing quests and getting badges and working towards unlocking the flaming dungeons and the PQI is the truly optimal way of raking in cash. Money grind is a dead end in this game, allthough having the gloves available and picking up TT to mop up for gold from boons whenever you have him on board after a run is just plain nice.

I'd know, because I've done it a lot back in the day before they added all the aforementioned sources of cash.

Oh, I haven't the knowledge to do anything beyond maybe edit such a document for grammatical errors and a vague recollection of how some of the early unlock order goes. For example, when I restarted for the full edition, I remembered enough to know the money was in the south, but that was one of the very few things I remembered. I'd even forgotten how to win the TT unlocking subdungeon.